!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yup at times it felt like a war of attrition but I knew these things were not easy to get rid of. But rid myself of these pesky little >insert that word here< I did. So I thought I'd write a tiny review so that anyone else who may be dealing with these things can cut right to the chase and exterminate these pesky annoyances.
The Gastropex affect on fish
None! Absolutely and without question! Since I added this to my aquarium my lemons who are the most recent addition started breeding. This is to be expected with new fish once they settle in fully but during this treatment my rummynose tetra, a tetra that we all know needs a very specific ph level to breed also started breeding. I have had the rummynoses since 09 and for whatever reason they decided to forgo their ph needs and just breed. From my understanding fish breed only when they are completely relaxed and since both tetras started during the treatment (and I saved 7 fry) I'm confident that the eggs/fish/fry were completely unaffected by it.
Treatment
When treating I found that it is of great importance to do the following. Add gastropex to a cotton bud and then wipe above the water line. This is because once the snails detect the treatment they head for the surface and hang out above the water line. I noticed this behavior too late into my first treatment so adjusted and found that the snails who broke the surface would "jump" back into the water lol or at least release themselves from the glass and sink back into the aquarium.
Pick out as many snails as you can before you start treatment because the dead snails will start to rot and raise your ammonia count. Thankfully I never had this issue because I completed a fishless cycle where 5ppm of ammonia could be dealt with in under 12 hours. But if your bac colony is weak you may run into problems once the snails start to decay.
The treatment is supposed to last 3 day but esha say you can extend this to 5 days if need be. I ran my second treatment for 7 days and my third for 7 days also. This is because I have a dirt based substrate which tends to absorb chemicals and draw them from the water column. I also upped the recommended dose from 18 drops to 30 drops to compensate for the soil.
Be sure to remove shrimp before starting the treatment.
Yes many people don't see the need to treat or address a snail issue. But personally when it comes to this hobby I'm a pretty selfish dude. I want my aquarium to look the way I want it to look. And that look does not entail little nasty, asexual, egg-lay-aholics which carry diseases that can affect my fish spoiling my view! Personally I dismiss the "add this and that over night" or "build a trap," or they do no harm etcetc approach. I also don't believe in adding a species (loaches etc) And to deal with a problem either and on that note if they are small snails then
Assassin snails can not eat them
It has been almost a month since I last saw one of these things
Ad at one point my substrate was littered with opaque white empty snail shells like some sort of lose metaphor of my aquatic struggle. But I wiped these little >you know the drill< out and as a result can only sing the praises of Esha Gastropex aka the tailor made wet napalm snail bomb!!!
Primous
